


Music

by Mersheeple



Series: Hearts&Cauldrons Snail Mail (Covid19) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark Spells, F/M, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25126054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mersheeple/pseuds/Mersheeple
Summary: There is something familiar about the voices played forwards. Played backwards, there is something sinister.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape, Lavender Brown/Ron Weasley
Series: Hearts&Cauldrons Snail Mail (Covid19) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809469
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29
Collections: Hearts & Cauldrons Snail Mail Exchange





	Music

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyHeliotrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHeliotrope/gifts).



> LadyHeliotrope, thank you so much for the prompt. I had a lot of fun writing this before I remembered I was supposed to send it via Snail Mail and had to write it out...LOL <3
> 
> Love you sweetie!

“I’m telling you Harry, the first time I heard him sing it gave me goose bumps. And then I found this.” Hermione held up the album that she had found hidden near the back of Severus’s collection. The black cover had a stylised Dark Mark in the centre with the words **‘Snake me like an Animal’** on the bottom.

“What the bloody hell is that?” Ron stepped forward to take the album out of her hand and she whipped it away quickly.

“It is what I called you here for. It’s an album by a band called The Snakes. Except, I recognise some of the voices. I think, between us, we should be able to work out all the voices.” Hermione grinned and waved the album at the assembled group.

Draco rolled his eyes and smirked at her enthusiasm where he sat, waiting for Harry to join him again. They had more than made up for their rivalry and had been dating on and off, mostly on, for the last three years. Lavender Brown sat nearby, her swollen stomach holding the next in the Weasley line. The scars on her face had faded and silvered and she was more beautiful than ever, if Ron was to be believed.

“This is the song that shows it the best I think.” Hermione placed the album onto the record player and moved the needle into position. The beginnings of a somehow familiar song started to play.

**“Alone from night to night you'll find me  
Too weak to break the chains that bind me  
I need no shackles to remind me  
I'm just a prisoner of love!”**

The voice was clearly Severus. Hermione had heard him sing this song multiple times, both in the shower and when he was in his lab. He usually whistled or hummed the second verse and, when she had heard this version of the song, she knew why. It was not his voice that broke in next, but the voice of a woman, turning the classic solo song into a duet.

**“For one command I stand and wait now  
From one who's master of my fate now  
I can't escape for it's too late now  
I'm just a prisoner of love!”**

“That’s Mother!” Draco’s voice broke through the silence and Hermione was glad she had chosen this song. She had her suspicions who the third voice was but knew the duet was coming up first.

**“What's the good of my caring  
If someone is sharing those arms with me!  
Although she has another  
I can't have another, for I'm not free!**

**She's in my dreams awake or sleeping  
Upon my knees to her I'm creeping  
My very life is in her keeping  
I'm just a prisoner of love!”**

Hermione smiled through the lyrics, now confirming that Severus and Narcissa were singing together and it was beautiful. The final voice would sing next and, hopefully, Draco could confirm the last voice, a beautiful male Alto that held echoes of sadness and emotion that Hermione was not entirely sure were not put on.

**“What's the good of my caring  
If someone is sharing those arms with me!  
Although she has another  
I can't have another, for I'm not free!”**

“And that is Father. You already knew that though didn’t you Granger?” Draco gave her a mock glare and Hermione smiled.

“I had my suspicions. It was when I heard this last verse after the interlude that confirmed it. Listen…”

**“She's in my dreams awake or sleeping  
Upon my knees to her I'm creeping  
My very life is in her keeping  
I'm just a prisoner of love  
I’m…I said I’m just a prisoner of love!”**

The three voices joined together in a beautiful harmony and Hermione sighed happily. The song was stunning and the lyrics were more beautiful than most of the album, though the whole album was a masterpiece. She did not want to stop listening to the music but, now that Draco had confirmed her thoughts, she assumed that they would want to stop the music.

It was Ron who stood up first though. It was Ron who chuckled as he walked towards the turntable and grinned at Harry.

“Remember when we tried to find those hidden messages in Sirius’s records? I wonder what the Snakes had hidden in their songs? ‘Join the Death Eaters, we have cupcakes!’?” He laughed softly and then the world slowed down as he started moving the record backwards, starting slowly and then moving it up until the horrendous noise became words, words they should never have heard.

_“Voco in tenebris, ut ad ea quae mihi fuerunt…”_ A black cloud descended on the room and Hermione heard a scream. She rubbed her eyes and the darkness cleared.

There was Ron, sitting next to her and smiling his goofy smile. He held her hand and sighed happily. She smiled back at him, knowing something wasn’t quite right but unable to place a finger on it.

“We’ll have two kids ‘Mione. Not too big a family, but enough to never have them lonely. Rose and Hugo. Hugo will be smart like you, Rosie will be more like me. Athletic…not so bookish. Doesn’t that sound perfect Mione?” He gave her that silly simpering smile again and Hermione felt herself nod as if in a dream.

“Yes Ron, two children sounds perfect. It was hard being an only child. It would be nice to have two children.” Hermione smiled at him and then turned to look at the other people in this strangely familiar house.

“What the hell are you doing here Malfoy? What have you done with Ginny? Where’s my _WIFE_? What have you done with her???” Harry was screaming at Draco, worse than he ever had when they were younger, and Draco was mumbling and muttering something about children and needing heirs. In the corner of the room, someone who looked like Lavender Brown was screaming in pain, writhing on the floor and then the screaming stopped and she lay still. Deathly still.

“What is all that noise about?” Severus Snape walked into the room, face thunderous as he took in the scene in his living room. He watched his wife’s friends acting most peculiarly for a moment, glancing around to find the threat. He stopped still as he glanced at the ceiling where a thick black cloud of malevolent energy seemed to crackle and spit.

“P-P-Professor Snape! I…something is wrong isn’t it? Oh my head hurts…” Hermione looked at him, her eyes shining with tears and he stepped back out of the room.

“Who the hell is the genius who invoked the Tenebris Fuerunt curse?” Severus muttered to himself, realising that somehow, she must have found his album. The one he kept hidden away from prying eyes because of exactly this. The curse that he and the Snakes had hidden in their music, at the behest of the Dark Lord. He thought of his pretty little wife the first time they made love and cast his Patronus, telling it to fetch Lucius and Narcissa and their final band member. He just hoped it wouldn’t take them too long.

Two pops of Apparition occurred almost immediately and he opened the door to the Malfoys, the relief evident on his face. Lucius stroked his hair back from his eyes and dusted off an imagined piece of lint from his immaculately pressed shirt.

“What, precisely, is this all about Severus?” His drawl was precise and Severus groaned softly.

“Tenebris Fuerunt.” Severus didn’t have time for their questions, he needed his wife back. He needed their friends back. He needed his life back.

“How is that possible? All the album got destroyed when we realised…or…not all of them then?” Narcissa’s eyes widened slightly. They needed their fourth member. Immediately. If not sooner. A soft pop echoed around them and all three sighed with relief. They turned to the fourth member of their band and took in the woman pointing her wand at them.

“Andi?” Narcissa spoke softly, the name choked out of her as she saw her sister for the first time since the end of the First Wizarding War.

“Cissy?” Andromeda Tonks was the first person to call her sister by that nickname as children. It was fitting then that she should be the only one left who used the diminutive form. Andromeda pocketed her wand and blinked, opening her arms to Narcissa who, with a soft cry, moved into her arms and whimpered, barely holding back tears.

“Ladies, I’m sorry to interrupt. You can catch up later I’m sure. I…I’m sorry, this is all my fault. I kept one of the albums and…” Severus trailed off as Andromeda’s eyes snapped to his, the blue hardening until the glare made him wince.

“Tenebris Fuerunt. This is why I left. You remember that? You remember that your curses caused me to leave my sister? You remember that don’t you Severus? Why should I help? Perhaps you are getting exactly what you deserve.” Andromeda pulled away from her sister and glared angrily at the Potions Master.

“Your nephew is in there as well. And Harry Potter. And…my wife.” Severus spoke softly, his usually strong voice wavering.

“Draco? And…Harry. For them then. I couldn’t care less about your wife.” Andromeda had never told Severus what she had seen when they had created and enacted the Tenebris Fuerunt but it had been the final straw, the thing that made her leave the band, leave them, leave him.

“Thank you…I…thank you.” Severus nodded and opened his door to them, the raised voices inside making his blood pound in his veins. Harry and Draco were still yelling desperately at each other, Lavender Brown had started screaming again and he could hear his wife moaning softly in a way that was definitely reserved for him and his hands only. Or his lips. Or his tongue. Or…definitely reserved for him. He stood just a little behind the rest of his bandmates as he took a cleansing breath. Andromeda hummed a note and they began to sing, their voices harmonising beautifully as if they had never stopped singing together.

**“You go to my head  
You linger like a haunting refrain  
And I find you spinning round  
In my brain  
Like the bubbles in a glass of champagne  
You go to my head**

**Like a sip of sparkling burgundy brew  
And I find the very mention of you  
Like the kicker in a julep or two  
The thrill of the thought  
That you might give a thought  
To my plea, casts a spell over me**

**Still I say to myself  
Get a hold of yourself  
Can't you see that it never can be  
You go to my head with a smile  
That makes my temperature rise  
Like a summer with a thousand Julys  
You intoxicate my soul with your eyes  
Though I'm certain that this heart of mine  
Hasn't a ghost of a chance  
In this crazy romance  
You go to my head, you go to my head**

**Though I'm certain that this heart of mine  
Hasn't a ghost of a chance  
In this crazy romance  
You go to my head, you go to my head”**

They held their final harmonic notes and Severus felt a wash of relief as the dark cloud began to recede and die. Hermione blinked strangely and then looked at him, her relief palpable as she stood, pulling away from a still dazed Ronald Weasley.

“What the bloody hell was that?” Obviously, he wasn’t as dazed as he had first appeared.

“That, Mr Weasley, is a very dark curse known as Tenebris Fuerunt.” Lucius’ voice drawled from beside him and Severus was glad he did not have to think as he held out his arms to his little lioness.

“Severus, what happened?” Hermione spoke softly as she approached him, her hand sliding up to his face, brushing away the tears he hadn’t known were there.

“We were in a jazz band. The four of us. We…we played classics from our childhoods. The Dark Lord found out and recorded our music with a dark curse if it was played backwards. The curse let people see what would happen in a darker future…one that felt real. If one thing changed, if one person died, how much would have changed. It was meant to turn people insane…” Severus shook as he wrapped his arms around Hermione and kissed the top of her head.

“You sing beautifully together. Why did you stop?” Hermione’s voice was slightly muffled in his shirt but, thankfully, he heard her. It was Andromeda who answered, however.

“I left the band. The Dark Lord made us listen to the curse and…after what I had seen I couldn’t stay. I defected to the Light before I ever took the Mark. We managed to break the curse because even when we were not ourselves, the music was still there. We started singing and…at one point, the notes, or the lyrics or…something broke the curse. I left the very next day and never came back. I married Ted three months later.” Andromeda smiled sadly and Narcissa squeezed her arm slightly. Hermione turned in Severus’s arms and smiled, knowing this is where she belonged.

“I think you might need to get the band back together for one more gig.” Hermione giggled softly.

“Who would hire us? Former Death Eaters and two of the Notorious Black Sisters.” Severus shook his head at his wife’s comment.

“I can think of two people.” Hermione laughed again, gesturing to where Harry was down on one knee proposing to Draco. Severus chuckled, grinning down at his wife before looking at the look of horror on his friend’s face.

“Finally. I think you owe me 10 Galleons, Lucius. I told you Harry would ask first.”


End file.
